CCD and CMOS imaging integrated circuits (IC) as well as other conventional imaging ICs are commonly used to capture images in real-time at visible and other wavelengths. Imaging ICs commonly form the basis for many modern photographic and video recording devices. One limitation of such devices, however, is that they only detect the total intensity of an incident beam of electromagnetic radiation.
An existing enhancement to conventional IC imaging arrays of the prior art is the ability to detect not just an image, but to detect the image at a number of different wavelengths. Detecting an image at a number of different wavelengths can be accomplished by creating pixels that are able to read the intensity at several different wavelengths simultaneously. Such an imaging device is known in the art as a hyperspectral imager.
What is needed is an inexpensive and more efficient hyperspectral imager integrated circuit.